From: Bill Stewart <stewarts@ix.netcom.com>
Date: Wed, 31 Jan 1996 16:49:57 +0800
To: Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@nsb.fv.com>
Subject: Re: CONTEST: Name That Program!
Message-ID: <199601310810.AAA00335@ix10.ix.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 11:45 AM 1/30/96 -0500, Nathaniel Borenstein <nsb@nsb.fv.com> wrote:
> In fact, I'd settle for getting onto 10% of the machines, although I
> suspect I could get onto more like 80% without raising a sweat.

You've alleged that Macs and Unixen should be about as easy as Windows
machines to crack with your CardShark.  I disagree - most Mac users I
know have been using virus protectors more consistently and reliably
than DOS/Windows users.  However, if their virus software only stops
known viruses, rather than anything modifying critical resources,
you might get away with it for long enough to surf some numbers.

Unix is a much tougher case - while there have been a couple of viruses,
they don't spread very well, even when everyone uses the same binary
formats.  B2 helps, of course; B1 configured reasonably should also work.

...
>Case closed.  Your argument would hold a lot more weight if you could
>convince me that the average Internet consumer was going to rebuild his
>UNIX kernel every few weeks. 

I suspect a machine that gets rebuilt every week may be _more_ at risk :-)

#--
#				Thanks;  Bill
# Bill Stewart, stewarts@ix.netcom.com, Pager/Voicemail 1-408-787-1281
# http://www.idiom.com/~wcs